January 30 2025, we collectively rewrote, with over 230 participants, the UN political declaration ‘Our Ocean, Our Future, Our Responsibility’ from the perspective of seagulls, jellyfish and polymetallic nodules. After presentations by scientists about these entities, we split up in three groups to start negotiating the chosen texts from a non human perspective. Not an easy job to crack these political anthropocentric writings, but doing this exercise together gave a glimpse of what an ecological democracy could look like… The outcome of our efforts and the rewritten texts will find their way into the Third UN Oceans Conference (UNOC3) in June in Nice…More about that later!
Assembly Whose Ocean? at Theater de Regentes
The ocean is vital for life on earth and climate, yet its voice is rarely heard in law and political decision-making. It is completely unclear who is meant when bodies like the UN speak of ‘our oceans’. It is also uncertain who has the right to lay claim to the ocean or represent it in international politics and law. This leads to problems in the case of, for example, deep-sea mining. How will the ocean’s interests be served if it is unclear who to hold accountable for damage to its ecosystem? Utrecht University, NIOZ, Embassy of the North Sea and Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, invited audiences to join the discussion on these matters in the Assembly Whose Ocean? at Theater de Regentes in The Hague. Through this assembly, we aimed to challenge the current ways the ocean is represented and explore alternatives.
Initiators & partners
The Assembly Whose Ocean? in Theater De Regentes is initiated by Utrecht University, NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Ambassade van de Noordzee en Casco Art Institute, and supported by Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie
With ao: Erik van Sebille, Aline Hernandez, Muge Yilmaz, Xandra van der Eijk, Magdalena Górska, Stephen Snelders, Sabine Gollner, Francesca Sangiorgi, Birgit Mara Kaiser. Moderators: Mirthe Frese, Absaline Hehakaya, Carolijn Terwindt. Costumes: Carly Everaert. North Sea cakes: Sheng Wen Lo. Graphic design: Corine Datema Lees hier meer in het online dossier.
Photo’s: Rik van Santen
